Gaia, our Planet, is a living, breathing organism. She is a conscious, living being. She is our home. She is meant to sustain us. To nurture us. She gives to us freely and asks for nothing in return.

However, most of us in the industrialized world have somehow forgotten the importance of our connection to her.

Both Physical and Emotional Abuses Affect Our Planet

Although some of the changes our Planet is going through are simply part of her evolutionary process, many are because of our greed, ignorance, and modernization – what we have physically done to her by defiling her land, polluting her air and water, damming up her waterways, and raping her natural resources.

Our Planet has also been affected by the emotional abuses we have put upon her. Humanity’s hate, greed, killing, judgment, and control over each other have also affected her energetic body.

Just as mistreatment of our physical and emotional bodies affects all aspects of our well-being, it is the same with our beautiful Planet.

Humanity once lived in harmony with nature and lived sustainably with the Planet’s natural elements. The further we fell into duality the more we aligned with attitudes of lack and greed.

Our lives became based on acquiring, amassing, and trotting over whomever and whatever to get what we wanted, or thought we needed to survive. Thom Hartmann expresses this beautifully in The Last Hours of the Ancient Sunlight.

Modern civilizations have come to truly

believe that the paths to a better life are

consumerism and to use our cleverness to

manipulate the “machine of nature”

to our advantage. (1)

For the most part, the Indigenous peoples around the world have maintained a connection with Mother Nature – they still hold a close, reciprocal relationship with her.

Maintaining harmony and a connection to nature was actually a conscious decision Indigenous people made as a group, eons ago, so that when we lost this connection they could show us the way back.

This article/blog post is based on concepts in my book Your Journey to Peace, Bridging the Gap Between Religion, Spirituality, Psychology, and Science. Book Synopsis is found here).

This article/blog post is based on concepts in my book Your Journey to Peace, Bridging the Gap Between Religion, Spirituality, Psychology, and Science. Book Synopsis is found here).

Indigenous People’s Roadmap to Harmonious Living

The Indigenous peoples’ gentle nature and connection to the earth are linked to the healing of Humanity.

In his article “The Three Seeds,” Charles Eisenstein tells us that thousands of years ago when we chose to play the game of “separation” with nature, the prophets at that time suspected we would lose our way and left “three seeds” to help us find our way back. (2)

The first seed was the “wisdom lineages.” These preserved and protected the essential knowledge, and became the mystical branches of the religions or belief systems: the Zen masters / gurus in the Eastern religions; Hasidism / the Kabbalah in Judaism; Sufism in Islam; the mystical branches of Christianity. The sages and holy men within these spiritual branches upheld the humility and mystical, experiential aspects of their faiths. (3)

The second seed was the “sacred stories: myths, legends, scriptures, fairy tales and folklore.” These tales, crouched in imagery and allegory, transcend the conscious mind, as they are supernatural conduits that convey the hidden knowledge of the ages. They infuse us with awe, wonder, and hope, so that however far we wandered into the “Labyrinth of Separation,” we always had a lifeline to find our way back. (4)

The third seed was the “indigenous tribes” who consciously chose to forgo the journey of separation with Gaia and growth into a technological society that destroyed nature. They instead continued to live close to the land and in harmony with nature so they could eventually provide us with a roadmap back to living in accordance with the “laws of nature.” The various tribes hold different aspects of the knowledge we have lost, such as how to commune reciprocally with nature and the animal kingdoms; read and understand dreams; raise our children; and see beyond our limited third-dimensional idea of time. (5)

Traditional teachings among most native people worldwide reveal their understanding of the concept of enough.

Those who live off the land, free of material obsessions, believe the earth will provide them with basic necessities;

They understand our deep connection to it;

They appreciate that the earth nourishes us with water, air, and food and understand that maintaining the purity of these is crucial;

They recognize Mother Earth as a gift from our Creator and that every molecule on it lives and breathes.

(For more information on this notion of enough seeherefor my article/blog post “The Concept of Enough.”)

Embedded in their histories is the belief that we are all our Planet’s stewards.

We would do well to listen to the Indigenous peoples and their concerns about maintaining fresh air, clean water, and healthy land. To carefully study and reflect on their approaches to nature.

We must do this for them so that they can maintain their connections to the land and cultures, and therefore their sense of empowerment, but we also must do it for all people.

As a collective society, it is the Indigenous people who have maintained the knowledge of how to keep our Planet healthy. Their beliefs about it are our roadmap to achieving a good and healthy future for our children and our survival as a whole – just as they intended eons ago.

We Disempowered Many Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous people all over the world tap into and sustain their empowerment through their connection to the land and cultural traditions.

Wherever we have overtaken their lands and/or forced our ways upon them we disempowered them, to say the least. The effects of centuries of abuse, misuse, control, and marginalization has done extensive damage that echoes through their generations.

It is imperative that we partner with the descendants of the Indigenous peoples throughout the world so their healing from the effects of how we treated them in the past may begin.

We must work acknowledging the accumulative effects of past abuses, with compassion for the plights they now suffer, with fairness in mind, and a goal towards equal rights.

We must ensure that future projects for profit (or those in the name of progress we want to promote) no longer infringe on rural, native, or Indigenous peoples’ health, culture, community, or way of life;

we must also acknowledge what we are still doing to undermine them, or their healing. Their welfare must be kept at the forefront of any decision-making that impacts the environment as a whole, their health, general welfare, cultural traditions, and their lands

we must do this so that Indigenous peoples can regain and maintain their connection to the land, which is essential to their sense of empowerment. This is what will allow them to thrive again;

we need to create partnerships with the Indigenous groups within our countries and work together to create a harmonious future that will benefit us all, and our future generations, on the lands we now share.

Programs and Movements Are Being Created Around the World

We are starting to address Indigenous peoples concerns: for the repercussions Indigenous peoples suffered at our hands, as well as to support their struggles against further encroachment on their heritage lands for greed and profit.

In 2012, a movement called Idle No More, was started in Canada countering a specific bill that would directly affect the First Nations concerns.

It spread to the United States, where it grew into one of the largest protests ever regarding Native American issues, and various other protests arose in solidarity around the world.

Many who were not of Indigenous heritage joined the Idle No More protests – some to show support for the native peoples’ concerns and others because of general environmental issues that affect all of us and our future.

In 2015 Canada set up a commission to bring to light and address the abuse and other ill effects for First Nations children that resulted from the Indian Residential School system that was set up by Government and Church over 150 years ago, with the last school closing only in the mid 1990’s.

These schools were aimed to alienate the First Nations children from their families and undermine their culture. The children who were forced to leave their reserves and attend these schools (where they were also badly treated) were heavily affected.

So were their descendants: the repercussions from alienating these children from their families and culture caused far-reaching negative effects.

In India, and after years of struggle, in 2010 the Dongria Kondh tribe won their battle against a resources company to prevent a planned bauxite mine that would have had a huge impact on their land and way of life.

They received support from various sources, one of them being Survival International, who helped create a documentary film “Mine: Story of a Sacred Mountain,” about the tribe’s life and this struggle. Survival brought in well-known British stars Joanna Lumley to narrate the film and Michael Palin help promote their cause. (6)

The film shows that the Dongria Kondh people are autonomous and actually thrive in the area their people have occupied for centuries, contrary to the popular belief that rural tribes and those living isolated from civilization are all characterized by hardship. The proposal to go ahead with the mining project was denied.

This denial has set a precedent and now has an international impact for future companies whose intention is to encroach on tribal lands for profit.

The extensive research that was done throughout the tribe’s struggle brought to light the necessity of fully investigating the effects projects of large corporations have on tribal and native peoples and their way life.

Our Countries’ Harmonies Are Linked to Indigenous Peoples’ Healing

In North America, most of us were not taught and therefore have not been aware of the extent and repercussions of the abuses the Indigenous peoples suffered when colonists came from Europe in search of a better life and took over their land.

The settler’s conquests paved the way for comfortable lives for themselves, and now ours. To ensure we create a good and safe future for all of us it is important to acknowledge and address what our ancestors did as they settled.

It is arrogant, even ignorant of us to complain about immigration and how those seeking a better life are changing the cultural landscape while we have not righted the wrongs made when our ancestors not only changed the Indigenous peoples’ cultural landscape, but in many cases eradicated some tribes completely.

If we want a harmonious future with those who are now immigrating into our countries as well as ensuring that our laws and the spirit of them are upheld, we must connect the dots between how we acted in the past towards the Indigenous people we usurped, the karma this was created, and what we want for our future.

Past karma can be overcome – when we choose to hold to positive attitudes around similar concepts and if we address the repercussions of past negative attitudes and their actions.

We Must Be Wise, Hopeful, and Open to Alternatives

Most of us understand that we have to change our ways to protect our environment and we do what we can, but fully embracing sustainable living while at the same time keeping our mouths fed and our houses heated and/or cooled is a complicated issue; it will not happen overnight. In the meantime,

we can educate ourselves;

we can start making wiser decisions;

we can support others in their quests for environmentally safer choices;

we also have to believe in the possibility of creating a cleaner and safer world for our children and their children;

while at the same time face the fact that some of what is familiar to us may disappear;

and we do this by being open to alternatives.

For example, we can exchange our lush green lawns and properties that require much watering to those characterized by various decorative alternatives to grass and plants.

Kelowna, B.C. (a dry, arid area in the Okanagan valley) has some beautiful properties that use a combination of different colored pebbles, small rocks, mulch, and small flowering and cactus-like plants and shrubs to create beautiful gardens. I’m sure other dry arid places have adopted similar practices.

With a little foresight and imagination there are many alternatives we can implement that are better for the Planet and that will also satisfy us – we just have to be a little flexible and open to new ideas.

Ideas and insights like this will start to be birthed in us once we make the decision to do what we can for our home. Gaia wants to survive – to thrive.

The energy of the planetary evolution we are in is inspiring us to reach for viable alternatives.

There is enough of what we need for all of us to go around, we just have to use what our Planet has bequeathed to us wisely – as the Indigenous peoples are asking us to do. (See here for link to article on our Planetary Evolution)

Eisenstein also tells us that the Indigenous mission has not been to change the world, but to act as a signpost showing us the way.

And although many tribes have disappeared, and most of them and many of us are saddened by this, their assignment was only to continue to exist long enough to show us how we as humans can live in reciprocity with nature and Gaia.

He says that as a whole, they have no awareness of this, but they do feel and have felt sorrow and the unfairness of what we have put upon them and the Planet.

As we all should! Not to focus on past mistakes based in ignorance but using newfound knowledge and understanding to look to creating a better future for all of us.